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“In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Well.

 

I have written a number of things about consultants and offering solutions and process <whenever you say ‘process’  say it like you have taken 6 Quaaludes … reeeeaaaaalllllyyyyyy sssslllllloooooooowww>.

 

Solutions always sound slow.

 

But here’s the deal.

 

Success almost always resides in ‘Solution speed’.

 

What I mean by that is the idea of how quickly a good solution can be developed to a challenge/problem/challenge/situation.

 

Some boneheads call it retail marketing or retail speed but the reality is it is just coming up the right (or a very close to being right if not the rightest) solution fast.

 

 

Let’s call it solution speed <and it is underrated and often over complicated>.

 

The tricky part <before I dig myself into too deep a hole> to this concept is that it cannot be a fast shitty solution. It has to be a good/great/awesome/awesomer solution done with speed.

 

Why did I add that?

 

Well.

First.

 

Just because someone comes up with something fast doesn’t mean it’s good. Just as with anything … you need to assess it fairly <without assessing too slowly … think in a “festina lente” way>.

 

Second.

In the heads of young <or less experienced> people offering good solutions with speed is challenging <if not a truly rare ability>.

Good smart young people can certainly offer solution speed. It’s just that it’s not particularly the ‘rightest’ solution with the speed because they just don’t have the background knowledge to cluster enough of the right information to offer the best solution.

 

Anyway.

 

Solution speed is an equation: The right pieces of the puzzle + puzzle assembly speed = solution speed.

 

Because of that equation I know I have always hired people smarter than I.

 

Hey.

 

Teams need thinkers and doers to be successful but if your team can develop an awesome solution speedier than anyone else it gives your team (who had to be relatively smart in the first place to get that type of solution) some cushion time to figure out how to “do it” <assuming you don’t have a spectacular doer on hand which is always a bonus on a team>.

 

So.

While smart young people can’t necessarily offer the best speedy solution … smart young people do something really well.

They assemble relevant insightful facts fast.

In fact … they can be essential to the speed side of the equation.

 

Oh.

 

Because not all facts are created equal. Playing with fact puzzle pieces that you end up throwing away because they don’t fit slows you down (that means slower solution speed just in case you missed the topic of this post). Now. As noted earlier young people mostly don’t have enough experience (yet) to do two things:

 

  • Know all the factoids necessary to find the solution, and

 

  • Assimilate the factoids to build the solution puzzle.

 

On those two things that’s where the senior more experienced person comes in.

And this is where the best solution speed occurs.

 

That more experienced person <if they are worth half a shit> already has some puzzle pieces on hand <stored in their pea-like brain> for whatever challenge being addressed. All that senior person is really doing is seeking the additional pieces necessary to finish the puzzle. The faster they receive them (and recognize them) the faster the solution can be developed.

 

Sure.

This puts a lot of pressure on the senior more experienced person (within a solution speed construct … in a solution slow process they aren’t pressured that much).

 

But that’s why they should get paid the big bucks. For time is money <on all sides of the equation>.

 

This senior person is usually expensive hourly but less hours is less out of pocket.

The faster the solution arrives the sooner everyone else gets started <time efficiency on that side>.

 

All that said.

 

Far too often … solution speed is underrated.

 

Or maybe better said it’s misunderstood.

 

Most business people think if the solution appears too fast something has been overlooked or under-thought.And when I say ‘most’ I would feel comfortable suggesting maybe 90% of business people.

 

Now.

 

I am sure that is true some of the time.

 

But I am also sure that the 80/20 <if not a 90/10> rule applies most of the time.

 

You spend 20% of the time gaining 80% of the awesome solution and then the remaining 80% of the time developing the 10% that may make it awesome<and the other 10% you come up with isn’t worth crap>. I mention that because the other thing a business person worth half a shit knows is that 80% awesome is a “go.”

 

There you go.

 

Ponder the idea of solution speed. And don’t slow it down if you find it.

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Written by Bruce